Have been running in battery saver mode, tried safe mode...just haven't gotten the right secret sauce for reasonable battery life.

for example: from fully charged to low battery warning overnight

Seems like many of the Samsung apps are non removable.Samsung push service; I disabled it so it said it was reverting to a previous version?what's that all about, and what is the previous name so I can disable that?I have an external battery to charge as necessary, that's not the answer.

Anyhow, what does everyone do in order to extend battery life?Suggestions, help requested and appreciated.TIA

Last edited by oldDummy on Sat Dec 28, 2013 8:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

How many hours are we talking about? What is your definition of "reasonable"? If you are using Exchange, pushing email all the time, and then check Facebook (with screen on) all day. Nothing is going to last 2 full days.

What other apps do you have installed, and how much background sync (like how many accounts) do you have going on? Care to post a battery drain graph, either through the standard Android battery screen, or via Battery Monitor Widget?

Also, start installing Wakelock Detector and measure the draw.

If both of your SIMs are active, then it will have more drain as well. So does having Google Now enabled (mine seems fine with it on).

Standard Android's battery graph resets as you exceed 90% while charging (same will apply to Wakelock Detector if you are measuring, so beware):

My Battery Monitor Widget graph, it saves more history. Each tick is 1 hour so you are seeing about almost my last 2 days. The steep drops were where I was playing a game or surfing when the screen was on. The other times it was fine.

I am sure once I add Exchange to it (with active push) I will not get that kind of battery life anymore. I believe disabling the app should take it out of running (just hogging storage). What's this about reverting? How much worse compared to the Nexus 5? With a qHD screen I would tend to think its battery life should be reasonable, but then again if you have 6-8 email/social network/IM accounts syncing and messaging all the time I don't know what to tell you. Also, what carrier are you using? Are you in areas of marginal signal strength? Because if the phone ends up searching the network all the time that can be a big battery hog as well.

BTW, it is I-9192, not 19192.

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

Well, Guys. Sorry to interrupt here. But I am that folk whose standby battery drain problem was solved by changing the motherboard. I have searched here as well as in other forums regarding this problem. What I have found out is this: That S4 mini 9190/9192 produced before October(probably one batch from which unfortunately we all bought) has faulty power manager chip attached to the mainboard. That causes that excessive standby drainage. It is precipitated by a random thing like opening video player, removing micro usb cord, etc. After a reboot this chip behaves normally till some random thing makes it go haywire. So my advice is to change your motherboard still under warranty period. Even if your phone is new, and your MOBO has this faulty chip, you will have this problem as it is a manufacturing defect.

PS1: 3% battery power drain per hour with out doing anything in a new phone is definitely abnormal. Do not waste your time in flashing new firmware, changing kernels or removing SIM cards. PS2: To know your RF date press *#12580*369#

How many hours are we talking about? What is your definition of "reasonable"? If you are using Exchange, pushing email all the time, and then check Facebook (with screen on) all day. Nothing is going to last 2 full days.

What other apps do you have installed, and how much background sync (like how many accounts) do you have going on? Care to post a battery drain graph, either through the standard Android battery screen, or via Battery Monitor Widget?

Also, start installing Wakelock Detector and measure the draw.

If both of your SIMs are active, then it will have more drain as well. So does having Google Now enabled (mine seems fine with it on).

Standard Android's battery graph resets as you exceed 90% while charging (same will apply to Wakelock Detector if you are measuring, so beware):

My Battery Monitor Widget graph, it saves more history. Each tick is 1 hour so you are seeing about almost my last 2 days. The steep drops were where I was playing a game or surfing when the screen was on. The other times it was fine.

I am sure once I add Exchange to it (with active push) I will not get that kind of battery life anymore. I believe disabling the app should take it out of running (just hogging storage). What's this about reverting? How much worse compared to the Nexus 5? With a qHD screen I would tend to think its battery life should be reasonable, but then again if you have 6-8 email/social network/IM accounts syncing and messaging all the time I don't know what to tell you. Also, what carrier are you using? Are you in areas of marginal signal strength? Because if the phone ends up searching the network all the time that can be a big battery hog as well.

BTW, it is I-9192, not 19192.

I-9192 it is.

Thanks for your effort. We would have been running around in circles.On top of everything it's intermittent in nature so a bear to troubleshoot When I contacted the seller he offered a refund/exchange immediately.me thinks he might have had knowledge of this. Whatever

Thanks for your help. The links brought me to sites I scanned through before; trodding thru once again... hit pay dirt.Beginning to think everything on ebay is b-stock/seconds. it was such a great deal.

12%/hr that's bad. My RF is in July. I do seem to have the occasional high drain, but Wakelock Detector showed it to be Google Now hogging the battery. A reboot pretty much solved the problem.

I bought from a highly rated 3rd party seller through Amazon. If it is a private sale then I don't know. At least the seller was willing to take it back.

Back when you were using the Nexus 5, what's the drain rate? Your remaining option, based on "known" rumours, will be the Xperia Z1 "mini". The most recent rumour pegged January 3rd as the release date in China. Problem is we don't know if and when it will come to the US.

Are you going to try another S4 mini?

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

Flying Fox wrote:12%/hr that's bad. My RF is in July. I do seem to have the occasional high drain, but Wakelock Detector showed it to be Google Now hogging the battery. A reboot pretty much solved the problem.

I bought from a highly rated 3rd party seller through Amazon. If it is a private sale then I don't know. At least the seller was willing to take it back.

Back when you were using the Nexus 5, what's the drain rate? Your remaining option, based on "known" rumours, will be the Xperia Z1 "mini". The most recent rumour pegged January 3rd as the release date in China. Problem is we don't know if and when it will come to the US.

Are you going to try another S4 mini?

Yes, if the gentleman from Singapore finds a good one.

The S4 mini duos is one of the best rated dual sim phones available.

Right now after ~6.5 hrs on battery it's reading 97% from afore mentioned 99%, not to shabby.

True , I have most options disabled, nevertheless.....

My Nexus 5 didn't have a chance to show it's stuff. Probably should have kept it.

Need to keep a backup phone now with new cellphone strategy.

Currently down to a refurbished HTC 8X. Say what you will, it has been mostly flawless.

if they made a dual sim version, i'd buy it.

EDIT: just ordered a Moto G delivered Monday, will ship out the S4 same day.

Sorry for the noob question, but was your phone a new one? Because if it is, normally the battery doesn't have a good rating in the early days of usage. I've noticed this with several phones. It takes a few weeks and charges to get the battery full up and running. My Lumia 920 when I bought it wouldn't make a full day with normal usage, but now 2 weeks later it can last about 1.5 to 2 days, with a normal usage (calls, messages, facebook, some internet browsing, etc...). Wireless and 4G always on, no battery savings.

Jon1984 wrote:Sorry for the noob question, but was your phone a new one? Because if it is, normally the battery doesn't have a good rating in the early days of usage. I've noticed this with several phones. It takes a few weeks and charges to get the battery full up and running. My Lumia 920 when I bought it wouldn't make a full day with normal usage, but now 2 weeks later it can last about 1.5 to 2 days, with a normal usage (calls, messages, facebook, some internet browsing, etc...). Wireless and 4G always on, no battery savings.

About two weeks ago.It has had enough charge cycles to simmer down.Intermittent hardware defect in specific batches of phones makes action imperative.At least in my view.

Have a new phone being delivered today. When activated will ship the S4 for replacement/refund.I like the S4 and the merchant has been supportive.Due to shipping/time constraints leaves no choice but to be pro-active.Hope to get the phone replaced. We shall see.

Proper calibrations of the battery numbers only happen when you have sufficient (at least one) large charge cycles. I suppose since you are at battery low warning you have been doing large charge cycles already. So something else seemed wrong. Too bad you didn't mention it earlier, then we could have do some measurements with Battery Monitor Widget (one of my first few "must" apps) and Wakelock Detector.

I have high hopes on your Moto G. Please do share your experiences.

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

One thing to check for is if your phone is syncing photos in the background with google+ (it does this by default believe it or not). Make sure you turn that off if you don't want it or enable it only over wifi. Don't worry the photos won't show up on your profile unless you publish them. Think of it like an online backup of your photos. That was my major drain issue with my phone (s4) when I upgraded to 4.3.

Flying Fox wrote:Proper calibrations of the battery numbers only happen when you have sufficient (at least one) large charge cycles. I suppose since you are at battery low warning you have been doing large charge cycles already. So something else seemed wrong. Too bad you didn't mention it earlier, then we could have do some measurements with Battery Monitor Widget (one of my first few "must" apps) and Wakelock Detector.

I have high hopes on your Moto G. Please do share your experiences.

While I received the merchant's UPS account # didn't get the invoice/paperwork needed to ship.As per shipper.Will try to get info and ship "next year" .meanwhile, using the phone and it's behaving correctly as it should....go figure.Don't know what to do now.

Got the G and I like it. first charge so can't say anything about battery...except it appears to be great [first impression].Didn't get the flip-cover I ordered, sold out.Upon Wi-Fi connection went to KitKat, Seems pretty much pure Android with minimal Moto influence. Fits nice in hand and isn't too big.So, in a nutshell: all good.

diesavagenation wrote:One thing to check for is if your phone is syncing photos in the background with google+ (it does this by default believe it or not). Make sure you turn that off if you don't want it or enable it only over wifi. Don't worry the photos won't show up on your profile unless you publish them. Think of it like an online backup of your photos. That was my major drain issue with my phone (s4) when I upgraded to 4.3.

Did factory reset before packing it for shipment. Upon startup just went in to notification bar and disabled all but sound.Seems to be behaving as it should. Darn, wish it would make up it's mind.Thanks for the info.

HEY ..I need help with my phone no connecting to the new network ..i moved from the states to Israel...and i followed all of the instruction from the providers..and still no network...the provider said that mybe i need a new ROM..that works out her...if anybody know please let me know asap

if you moved from the US, it's possibly your phone is locked to your own carrier. And it's equally likely that your phone doesn't support the frequency/band that your new carrier uses. Either of those would prevent you from connecting.

(also, necro?)

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.